Wars and Conflicts of the 20th Century Quiz

Answer: The Spanish Civil War

The Spanish Civil War, which lasted from 1936 to 1939, was a conflict in Spain following the initial failure of a military rebellion to overthrow the country's democratically elected government. The war divided Spain both geographically and ideologically. Germany and Italy intervened on the side of the Fascists.

It brought to power General Francisco Franco, who ruled Spain from the end of the war until his death almost 40 years later. By the time the war was over, an estimated 500,000 people had been killed in combat or by execution, or had died as a result of hunger or wounds. An additional 250,000 to 500,000 supporters of the losing side left Spain to avoid persecution.

Answer: The Boer War

The Boer War (sometimes referred to as the Second Anglo-Boer War), which lasted from 1899 to 1902, was a conflict in southern Africa between Britain and the two Afrikaner ("Boer") Republics - the Orange Free State and the Transvaal, in what is now South Africa.

In the course of the Boer War, British losses totaled about 28,000 men. African losses were about 4,000 men, plus more than 27,000 civilians who died, mainly from disease, in concentration camps.

Answer: The Russo-Japanese War

The Russo-Japanese War was an armed conflict between Russia and Japan in 1904 to 1905. The cause of the war was that Russian expansion in east Asia ran counter to Japanese plans for gaining a foothold on the Asian mainland. In 1898 Russia leased Port Arthur (now Lüshun) from China, with the intention of making it a great Asiatic port and the headquarters of Russian naval power in the Pacific. Russia had poured troops into Manchuria during the Boxer Uprising in 1900 but, faced with the Anglo-Japanese alliance of 1902, promised to leave Chinese territory.

Answer: The Iran-Iraq War

The Iran-Iraq War was an armed conflict that began when Iraq invaded Iran in September 1980 and ended in August 1988 after both sides accepted a cease-fire sponsored by the United Nations. The war was one of the longest and most destructive of the 20th century, with likely more than one million casualties.

Despite the conflict's length and cost, neither Iran nor Iraq made significant territorial or political gains, and the fundamental issues dividing the countries remained unresolved at the end of the war.

Answer: World War I

World War I lasted from August 1914 to November 1918. It involved many of the countries of Europe as well the United States and other nations throughout the world. World War I was one of the most violent and destructive wars in European history. Of the 65 million men who were mobilized, more than 10 million were killed and more than 20 million wounded.

The term World War I did not come into general use until a second worldwide conflict broke out in 1939. Before that year, the war was known as the Great War.

Answer: The Korean War

The Korean War originated in the division of Korea into South Korea and North Korea after World War II. Efforts to reunify the peninsula after the war failed, and in 1948 the South proclaimed the Republic of Korea and the North established the People's Republic of Korea.

In 1949 border fighting broke out between the North and the South. On June 25, 1950, North Korean forces crossed the dividing line and invaded the South. Soon, in defense of the South, the USA joined the fighting under the banner of the United Nations (UN), along with small contingents of British, Canadian, Australian, and Turkish troops.

In October 1950 China joined the war on the North's side. By the time a cease-fire agreement was signed on July 27, 1953, millions of soldiers and civilians had perished.

The armistice ended the fighting, but Korea has remained divided.

Answer: The Vietnam War

The United States became involved in Vietnam because American policymakers believed that if the entire country fell under a Communist government, Communism would spread throughout Southeast Asia. This belief was known as the "domino theory." The U.S. government, therefore, helped to create the anti-Communist South Vietnamese government.

This government's repressive policies led to rebellion in the South, and in 1960 the NLF was formed with the aim of overthrowing the government of South Vietnam and reunifying the country.

In 1965 the United States sent in troops to prevent the South Vietnamese government from collapsing. Ultimately, however, the United States failed to achieve its goal, and in 1975 Vietnam was reunified under Communist control; in 1976 it officially became the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. During the conflict, approximately 3.2 million Vietnamese were killed, in addition to another 1.5 million to 2 million Laotian and Cambodians who were drawn into the war. Nearly 58,000 Americans lost their lives.

Answer: World War Two

World War II began in 1939 with the invasion of Poland by Germnay, which then became a European conflict between Germany and an Anglo-French coalition; and eventually widened to include most of the nations of the world. It ended in 1945, leaving a new world order dominated by the United States and the USSR. More than any previous war, World War II involved the commitment of nations' entire human and economic resources, the blurring of the distinction between combatant and noncombatant, and the expansion of the battlefield to include all of the enemy's territory. The most important determinants of its outcome were industrial capacity and personnel. In the last stages of the war, two radically new weapons were introduced: the long-range rocket and the atomic bomb. In the main, however, the war was fought with the same or improved weapons of the types used in World War I. The greatest advances were in aircraft and tanks - and also in communications (radio) and warning-systems (radar).

Incidentally, the expression a "war to end all wars" was used of World War I by Lloyd George - but a little over twenty years later Europe found itself fighting another major war ...

Answer: The Gulf War

The Persian Gulf War began in August 1990, when Iraqi forces invaded and occupied Kuwait. The conflict culminated in fighting in January and February 1991 between Iraq and an international coalition of forces led by the United States. By the end of the war, the coalition had driven the Iraqis from Kuwait with very few casualties.

Answer: The Winter War

The Russo-Finnish War was fought between Finland and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1939 and 1940, during the beginning of World War II, following the inability of the two countries to reach an agreement on Soviet demands for territorial concessions.

The USSR, worried that German forces might attack through Finnish territory, wanted Finland to cede their land near Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). The Finns refused, and the war began on November 30, 1939, lasting until March 12, 1940.

It was a bitter disappointment for the Soviets in terms of human lives.